The Freudian Slip Of A Bacolodnon

Video clips courtesy of ABS-CBN News, the leading TV network in the Philippines.

I am not certain if I made the right decision. Certainly it is not an easy choice. There are reasons that led to this decision. However, I am certain that no matter where this choice will lead me in the future, I feel no regrets having experienced the opportunity-of-a-lifetime. The only motivation from the beginning was to serve. Perhaps there is a much bigger design at work. Nonetheless, the same passion to make a difference fueled me to even break through my limitations. It started as a personal journey towards self-discovery, the search for the boundaries that limit one's individuality and capacity. It proceeded with having opportunities to connect with people, traveling perhaps the same road, in search of their own individuality. These connections shall remain perpetuated in my heart and mind. It was not an easy choice and the letting go was painful considering that there were so many hands to let go. While others broke free quite easily, others wanted to hold on with a firm cl...

I have just come back from Helsinki where we spent 2 days for the practical part of our Global health course. I am now blogging from Tampere, tired and with a sore back. During the weekend, we have been carrying our backpacks and running around Tallinn, the beautiful capital of Estonia. It was my second European country to visit and I loved the place. It was beautiful and the old medieval buildings almost brought me to another dimension. For one, the trip going to Tallinn from Helsinki was already exciting. It was my first boat ride across the Baltic Sea, aboard Viking Express. The ship was huge and inside the ship was a grocery, dozens of food shops and bars, a dance floor, even a couple of playrooms for the kids. It was almost surreal. When we docked at Tallinn, it was a long walk to our Hotel where we immediately left our bags and headed outside to the Old Town where a lot of tourists were also finding their way in the labyrinthine cobblestone streets of the historic city. Of course...

What is so good about this Global Health Course is that it has allowed me to interact with people from different cultures. All participants - Finns, Nepalese, Chileans, Filipinos and Tanzanians - are unique from each other, both in their personalities and their perspectives of the world and their own respective societies. However, while the differences can be obvious, there are similarities and commonalities which may not be as prominent as the variety but nonetheless real. It is important therefore that some linkages must be made amongst the participants which can be very helpful in the now and future in many aspects of our individualities. It is important that linkages must be made in order for us to ensure that we in our own respective ways put into practice the principles of equity and justice and equality in the field of public health. In the last remaining days of our lectures, the GHC7 participants decided to spent more time for CHILLAXing (combination of chilling and relaxing)...

What an inspirational day. Talk about a wake up call. The lecture of writer Michael Meegan, author of the books All Will Be Well and Changing The World Step By Step, was what I needed, both as a public health physician and as an individual. He talked about the actors in Global health and he basically described how these huge international aid agencies would funnel their donations to supposedly help developing countries improve their health status. It is true when he said that most of these international aid agencies do so only to benefit themselves and not necessarily benefit the recipients. When he showed the "global stage" with all these key actors interlinking with each other for global health, he bluntly pointed out a glaring mistake in this global scene, a missing actor, one participant lacking in the drama of global health: the community, the supposed recipients of these aid funds. It is so unfortunate that these big donors confine themselves only within their own bu...

Today's theme was practically about emergencies and unintentional injuries and their global impact. However, I wanted to deal more on the last lecture for the day which was originally scheduled for last week. It was about the issue of immigration of health professionals in the global stage. Basically the lecture was about how the imbalance distribution of health professionals are affecting the delivery of health care services. The movement of health professionals from one side of the world to the other is one of those contributing to this inequitable distribution of health care providers. This phenomenon is very much predominant in the Philippine setting although not exclusive. African countries and other South Asian countries are also experiencing the phenomenon of what is called "Brain Drain". For some of these source-countries, it is more than just brain drain. It is already a Hemorrhaging Brain. The concept therefore of addressing the issue lies on the level of recogn...

I love today's discussion and lectures. Definitely the type of Global health Course Class I was expecting and waiting for since Day 1. We had many group discussions in the previous days but none as engaging and provocative as this one. Maybe perhaps it is because the topic in itself is already provocative in nature. The issue on abortion, whether it would be legal or not, is always a divisive issue. The topic was all the more made complicated when the proposition was introduced, asking whether as a medical professional, how willing are you to make an illegal abortion safe, given the circumstances. The proposition was made on the contention that worldwide, there are many maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions and most of these unsafe abortions are basically not legalized in their respective countries. Most European nations legalize abortion and the spectrum of qualifications for abortion varies from the most conservative to the most liberal reasons. What was interesting was that th...

Today's topic focused on Women's Health and when we talk about women's health, we usually talk about sexual and reproductive health mainly for obvious reasons. A woman is in a special biological privilege to bear children. But when one talks about Women's Health, one cannot also avoid talking about gender inequality, injustice towards women and poverty. Topics on overpopulation, birth control and even abortion are only the surface of a murky water where in its depths are primordially the most basic causes of these maternal illnesses. The lecture brought new perspectives regarding population control, sexual and reproductive health and rights. One major question proposed during the lecture was, "What is the best contraceptive of all times?" The answer is child survival. The more we improve the survival outcome of children, the more mothers will choose not to bear more children. In other words, the lecture was touching on the so many social determinants of wom...

I am letting the pictures speak for themselves here. But it was truly an unexpected pleasant surprise for us when we got to Helsinki last Saturday. We were actually looking for Filipino communities where we could celebrate the Philippine Independence Day in Helsinki. But what we found was the entire Helsinki dancing to the tune of samba in skimpy clothes one very cold Saturday afternoon.

It was a long day for all of us and it was expected that the topics on non-communicable diseases would have been a livelier one. It was actually on some parts of it. I personally preferred the topic on Global Tobacco Control being a personal advocate against smoking. While we did end on time, it was definitely a draining day. By the afternoon, everyone was almost too tired to even think. The topic on Mental health for example, while personally relevant, was almost too dragging, with lengthy introductions and emphasis on the clinical aspect on the common mental illnesses affecting the world. I would have wanted the discussion to focus on how the nations are collectively or individually addressing mental health issues and perhaps share best practices or failures in the approach to mental health. I definitely admired the Chilean health system with regards to mental health. According to the Chilean doctors, mental health is being address at the primary level. Each common mental illness ...

Remember what you have promised, the pledge you yelped at the top of your lungs while standing upon the graves of revered heroes from whose bones you yourself found life. Remember the dead and how they from the afterlife can see the ways of the living. Remember what you have promised, the oath you etched on solid rock the same rock that bears the names of men and women from whose deaths our liberty has been regained. Remember the aged and how their ancient wisdom permeates the cobwebs of the present times. Remember what you have promised, the commitment you signed before the multitude gathered in shades of yellow and white, a contrast to the gloomy mood, masses of emaciated souls robbed of hope. Remember the living and how frustrations can easily replace the euphoria that once traversed their very veins. Remember all these things you have said, for while our patience can endure 20 years of bondage to apathy, and our hearts can be fickle in our daily choic...

Today's was theme was basically Child Health and when we talk about child health, we cannot help but talk also about immunization and prenatal care and postpartum care and under-five-clinic programs geared towards taking care of the health of children. Children after all belong to the risk groups. I liked today's discussions considering that we had more time to interact with other participants. During the first round of discussions, the class was divided into four groups and each group was given a role to play. One group pretended to be the Ministry of Health (Department of Health), the other the Local Government Unit, the other was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the last group was the Doctors without borders. We were given a community-in-focus and the objective was to make recommendations on how to intervene in order to reduce child mortality. Our group was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It was a very lively discussion but I was frankly distracted by the ...

The topic during the fifth day at the 7th Global health course in Tampere, Finland focused mainly on the problem of malnutrition, specifically undernutrition which is common among low and middle income countries. During the lecture on nutrition, the topic was presented basically with an introduction to malnutrition and the different clinical types of this illness and its epidemiology: basically the What, Who, Where, When, How, Why and So What of Undernutrition. Among the many causes identified for malnutrition is, other than the biological conditions such as illnesses and the like, the non-medical conditions such as the various social determinants of health mentioned in the previous week. I found it true when the lecturer summed up his topic on undernutrition emphasizing that the cause of this problem is fundamentally political. The social pathogenesis of undernutrition is basically the inability of food source to come into the environment, from which there is also inability of foo...

It is day 5 of the 7th Global Health Course in Tampere, Finland and the topic for the day was Health Systems. We listened to lectures on health care financing, comparing the three types of financing and how they differ from each other. The thing is there is really no perfect system and no hard fast rule on which system each country must adapt. Each system has its own pros and cons and basically it depends on the culture and social acceptability. The lecture was further emphasized when we watched the movie Sicko. I have personally seen it many times and it is interesting to hear comments from non-Americans, especially the Finns who are basically Europeans and are using relatively the same type of financing scheme with the other European countries, regarding the film and basically the health care financing system in America. After the film we had a lecture on Counterfeit medicines and its global threat. The lecturer was from a huge pharmaceutical company and while he was lecturing, I ...

The first Saturday of June is a free day for GHC participants and so we Pinoys decided to take a walking tour of the city of Tampere. We left our flat at around 10 am and went immediately to Pisala. Why Pisala? When we were going to Tampere during our first day in Finland, we met a friendly Finnish girl in the bus who advised us to visit Pisala because we would love the place. So we got ourselves a map of Tampere, planned our routes and decided to go to Pisala first because it is the farthest from Lapinkaari where we are currently staying. By the time we reached Pisala, we were trying to find a place where we could view the beautiful lake in the area. Another friendly Finnish lady who was a resident of the place and was jogging noticed four seemingly lost Filipinos in the middle of the road holding maps with names we could hardly pronounce. She brought us to this small park overlooking the beautiful lake by the South side of Tampere and it was indeed beautiful. After taking pictures...